Desperado
by SMVENOM
Summary: Subject 9: Skylor McClain.  Held hostage, the eighteen-year-old is told about genetic memories, and how in order to get what they want, Abstergo Industries is going to send her back to the Old West as her great-great-grandfather, Gavin Anderson. One-shot.


**A S S A S S I N ' S C R E E D**

Desperado

Written By: AwesomeMcGeeofCaledonia

Rated T+ for _**strong **_language

Disclaimer: I do not own the Assassin's Creed brand. That would be Ubisoft.

…

_Abstergo Industries – 1994_

_Subject 9: Skylor McClain_

_**LOADING/**_

I had too much life ahead of me. Only eighteen years old, and there I was being held hostage in a facility that just _couldn't _exist. Abstergo: _that_ was the name that was being repeated all around me by the hundreds of monitors, the dozens of scientists. I knew my family was different from most – hell, I was told the truth when I was only seven years old - but I never expected this day would come. You see, my name is Skylor McClain. And I'm an assassin.

I'd been told at an early age that most of my ancestors had done the same job. It wasn't until I was seven that I was told that that "job" had been operating as an assassin in the Assassin's Brotherhood. Then five years later, I began my own training. I killed my first target at the age of fifteen. I was amazed that one of my ancestors hadn't ruined our assassin heritage long ago, after discovering that most assassins in my family were arrogant and impatient, known more than once to break the Creed. I wanted to change that, though. I would follow the Creed perfectly. And my reward for that was being kidnapped by Abstergo.

I'd only been there a couple of days when they decided they were going to perform their tests on me. I was told to get into a machine, an Animus, I think they called it. The man, Warren, had told me something about genetic memories, and how our ancestor's memories could be embedded in our own DNA. He told me they needed something, and that one of my ancestor's was the key to finding it. It made me… it made me feel kind of special, coming from a family that had something that these bastards wanted. But it also scared me. What would they do once they found what they were looking for? How the hell did an Animus work? I discovered the answer to my second question the very next day, when I was told that I was going to pay a visit to my great-great-grandfather, Gavin Anderson.

…

_Flagstaff, Arizona – July, 1914_

_Assassin: Gavin Anderson_

_**LOADING/**_

He could feel the sweat pour down his face, the golden Arizona sun beating down on him. His straw hat did a decent job of keeping the bright rays out of his eyes, though.

Gavin Anderson was an assassin. At this moment, he was waiting for his target, Pedro Ramos, to show himself. It was Independence Day, and though Arizona had only been a state for a little over two years, all the citizens of Flagstaff had gathered in the town square, awaiting the festivities that would soon commence and carry on well into the night.

_Festivities that I will have no part of, _Gavin thought to himself. _Not while I have this bastard to deal with…_

Ramos was a high-priority target of the Brotherhood. Not only was he a Templar Agent, but he was also responsible for the deaths of three assassins.

_Too much has been lost to allow him to live any longer._

Though he had been taught to use stealth, Gavin was willing to do whatever it took to make sure Ramos didn't leave the festival.

As the day carried on, Gavin did not move. He had been sitting on the same bench for nigh four hours, waiting. Waiting and thinking.

…

Finally, as the day turned well into night, Gavin's target entered his sight. Ramos appeared to be completely relaxed, having no idea what was about to take place.

_Nearly time._

Slowly standing up off the bench, Gavin peered out from under his hat's brim, marking his target. Ramos was the only Mexican currently at the festival, making him very easy to separate visually from the rest of the crowd. However, _actually _separating him from the crowd… that would be the challenge.

Out of habit, Gavin reached down to his right side, making sure his Peacemaker was still in its holster. Feeling the gun pressed against his fingers, he retracted his hand, and brought it up to his hat, pulling the brim further down his browline, obscuring his face.

_I gotta get him away from that crowd._

Just as Gavin thought this, an entire band of men broke out in music, playing banjos and crude drums. People swarmed around them, setting up an area for dancing. Ramos followed these people, and began to dance with a young blonde woman.

"Grr…" the impatient Gavin growled.

_Fuck it, I gave it some time._

He was going to take a less stealthy approach.

The clock tower that provided a nice little backdrop for the festivities was also going to make the perfect high ground for Gavin, he'd decided. Breaking out into a quick trot, Gavin made his way towards the clock tower's base. Noting that nobody had paid him any attention, he began to scale the side of the tower with ease, his training once again demonstrating itself. After a few short moments, he'd reached the tower's top, and positioned himself above the clock.

"Gotcha' now," he mumbled under his breath, pulling his Peacemaker from the holster. Using his Gift, Gavin easily picked out Ramos's form in the darkness. Raising the handgun to the front of his face, he took a deep breath, exhaling it slowly. Careful aim and precision. That was all he needed.

The very nanosecond before he pulled the trigger, the tower came to life, bells began to chime, completely throwing his aim off just as he pulled the trigger. Though the bells were loud, they weren't enough to mask his gunshot, and the crowd all turned towards the young blonde woman Ramos had been dancing with. She was now nothing more than a corpse on the ground that was slowly being surrounded by a pool of dark liquid.

_Oh shit…_

It had only been an accident. Gavin hadn't meant to shoot the woman, the bells just threw him off, and now- Ramos was running!

_She will not have died in vain!_

While the crowd far below him erupted into chaos, Gavin dived from the tower's top, landing in a conveniently placed pile of hay that had yet to be baled. Jumping out from the hay, Gavin made sure to keep a bead on Ramos, who wasn't as fast as a man running for his life should have been.

_I should've waited, shouldn't have gotten so God damned careless…_

There would be time for scolding later – and knowing the Grand Master, there _would _be time for scolding later – but right now, Gavin had a job to do.

Pumping his legs and arms, sprinting as fast as he could, Gavin quickly halved the distance between him and Ramos. Checking to see if his assailant had followed him, Ramos did a quick check over his shoulder, and became even more frightened.

"Assassin!" Ramos yelled. "Stay the hell away from me!"

Ignoring him, Gavin sped up, and within only a few seconds, was right behind Ramos.

"This," Gavin began, "Is for my family!"

Performing an impressive leap, Gavin dove into Ramos's back, sending him to the ground.

"No! Get off of me, get off of-"

The blood flew everywhere. Gavin, after killing his first target, had learned that you could never quite predict where the blood would go. Ramos's chose to go _everywhere_. The open gash in his neck was still spurting the dark substance as Gavin stood up, retracting his hidden blade.

_You never fail me. _He thought of his weapon.

As the blood began to clot, Gavin knelt down at Ramos's side, and placed his right index and middle fingers over the body's eyes.

"Rest in peace," Gavin said, as he closed the eyelids for the last name. "Bastard."

His family had been avenged. Gavin Anderson looked up at the pale moon, and pulled his hat further down his face than he had when the scorching sun had been in the sky. He was going home.

_**LOADING/**_

_Author's Note: I'm not sure if this will stay as a one-shot or once… it could just work as a little self-contained story or something. It's definitely not the greatest job I could've done, but I've got Assassin's Creed fever right now, so I wanted to type up a little FanFic. Keeping with the Altair and Ezio means eagle thing, Skylor means eagle while Gavin means hawk, so I had the avian reference there. Also Skylor and Gavin are both Irish and Scottish names respectively, and given that my own family background consists of a bunch of Scotch-Irish people, I thought it'd be cool to incorporate that into the story. Gavin's "Gift" is Eagle Vision, just in case you were unsure of that. I thought it'd be really cool to have a cowboy-esque assassin, so that's basically where the idea for this story came from. Anyway, let me know what you think, and if enough people agree, I might expand it beyond a one-shot._


End file.
